A quick note regarding these posts: I write the best prose when I’m slightly tired, so I usually compost the bulk of these in the middle of my workouts. Of course, by the time I’m cleaned and fed and comfortable in front of the computer, most of the better parts have wandered away.

That said, today I was considering the differences and similarities of my chosen sports, endurance riding and bike riding. Mainly, that both sort of boil down to the same thing; endurance and comfort. For the horse sport, you need to consider the comfort and fitness of both the horse and yourself, pushing both of you a lot farther than most bother to go. For biking, in order to get in a decent workout that doesn’t bore me to tears, you have to take your comfort, the fitness/maintenance of your metal and rubber steed, and push yourself outside your safe zone.

For biking, my circle has been on quiet roads with low-speed limits or non-motorized special paths in and about town. I’ve only done the various routes about Canby a handful of time, and I’m already a bit…bored. I’ve seen plenty of other bikers coming over the ferry, so I decided the roads on that side, winding and backcountry as they may be, couldn’t be too terrible. If Jim Wright can ride a bike all around the Florida Panhandle, I could ride on some close-in Oregon roads where we are much more accustomed to seeing bikers on our roads. So, I endured and pushed and sweated a bit more than usual.

However, I also realize that it only takes one jerk in a hurry, or under some backwards ass notion that they own the road, to ruin my day. As the frail human not protected by a giant car designed to keep me safe, I’d loose in any event that ended with me versus jerk in a car. But it’s a quiet weekend evening, and since I would be on the backroads to the ferry, I was hoping it wouldn’t be too terrible.

My luck held and out of twenty cars I saw on the ‘questionable’ part of my route (no shoulder) I only saw one driver that raised my fist at them (they sped by me as fast as they could…only to end up on the same slow ass ferry as I did…those five seconds didn’t help them any!) I want some super nerdy researchers to run an experiment, testing how much time people save by being rude to people around them when they are driving, cutting people off, buzzing bikers, general speeding, versus being polite and figuring “I’ll get there when I get there.” Betcha it’s like two to three minutes, tops, starting and ending at the same destination (minus the time if you manage to get pulled over by a cop or get caught by a traffic camera!)

Moving on…I did manage to ride for just over two hours and 16 miles (though at least twenty minutes was riding the ferry, and panting by the side of the road after the haul uphill from the ferry, hot damn!) I sent in my measurements for a Facebook “Winning is Loosing” group, that runs a fitness challenge to motivate people loosing weight and gaining strength to be better riders. I’m going to do some more research on human electrolytes on the word of a mentor who used to do Ironman’s (all that time worrying over horse electrolytes at endurance rides, never clicked I might need them!) I’m gearing up for Kade’s first backpack trip sometime soon, so happy his cast is off, pins are out and his arm’s almost healed!